


graft vs. host

by thir13enth



Category: Altered Carbon (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-14 22:16:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13599537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thir13enth/pseuds/thir13enth
Summary: where do feelings come from: our body or our mind?





	graft vs. host

This _gaijin_ body is nothing like him.

Tall, pale, thin. _White._ Hair in places he isn’t familiar with: a soft sheen over his forearms, coarser bristles over his shins, irritating along the line of his jaw. A heavier skin that makes emphasizes the bags under his eyes and the wrinkles across his forehead. He still hasn’t gotten used to the sight of brown hair rimming the periphery of his vision and he still can’t figure out the right way to comb this flat hair.

This body makes him feel like his father. And maybe that’s why he never looks in the mirror and tries not to stand in front of still water or frosted glass, but either way he tries not to remind himself about nightmares from childhood.

Sleeve switching prepared him to adapt to bodies he would have never imagined purposing, but he doesn’t think any amount of years as an Envoy would have readied him for _living_ in a body and for calling this flesh his mind’s new _home_.

Never mind the baggage this body carries.

Like a magnet, this body pulls toward Ortega.

He thought nothing of it at first — the accidental bump or the occasional stumble, the extra few seconds he stares when she enters the room or the almost automatic search for her laugh whenever he makes a crude remark. He thought the zeitgeist nature of his existence was just making him especially attune to everything around him, or that he was just sleeve-sick and seeking any form of human comfort.

But around her, he can feel his body fill with want and desire, and it was altogether too overwhelming to pass off as a side effect of reawakening from a 250-year death.

He knows she can feel it, too.

And he knows she doesn’t see him — she only sees his body.

It sickens him. Bancroft, really. Whenever he thinks of how tormented he feels entrapped in a body that he cannot reject, he reminds himself that this falls nothing short of the anguish Ortega must feel seeing her dead lover’s body reanimated to a rebel Envoy whose history has shaped the horrid world as she knows it.

Yet, despite all this, she still watches him with soft eyes. He knows she can’t help how her heart feels when he stands next to her, when she rushes forward to take down a suspect knowing he’s covering her, when they solve cases together in the exact same ways the exact same body did just years ago.

He’s asked her before. She can lie and tell him when she looks into his eyes that she sees no one else but him, but how is that even possible when he carries her lover’s voice, her lover’s scars — her lover’s touch when he accidentally brushes his hand over her forearm while they’re sitting in the backseats of the taxi, stuck together again out of chance because Bancroft’s mysteries and police work kept putting them at crossroads.

Confused by the sudden feel of warm skin on the back of his hand, he looks over to the other side of the car seat, where her eyes meet his.

For one, two, maybe three seconds, she stares at him, waiting, as if asking for permission.

He looks away, glancing back at the neon lights and passing skyscrapers of the city through the backseat window. She must take this as a sign, because in the next moment, her hand has slowly slipped up to cover his hand, her thumb running over his knuckles.

He doesn’t pull away.

The lack of his reaction confuses him. He lets her hand rest over his, and moreover he doesn’t think anything out of the ordinary about it — and this confuses him even more because there’s something comfortable about the feeling of her small fingers weaving between his fingers that feels like home.

It’s not love. It _can’t_ be love.

After all, he doesn’t love her. He _can’t_ love her. It doesn’t make sense. Everything he feels about her feels strangely foreign, utterly unnatural.

 _It’s just this damn body_ , he thinks.

.

.

They say love is in the eye of the beholder, but there’s nothing the old adages from millennials ago can say to this when the eyes aren’t your own.

And she looks particularly entrapping tonight.

Coming to her home after her invitation was a mistake he knew he was getting into, but there was a part of him — or maybe all of him, both mind and body — that really didn’t care for the consequences of a late night in Ortega’s home after one too many drinks.

Somewhere between the kitchen and the bedroom, “I love you,” slips out from his lips before he even knew the words were on his mind.

Were they ever in his mind to begin with? Or was this just his body talking?

Without a second lost: “I love you,” she replies undoubtedly, and before he can take another breath, she closes the distance between their mouths, wraps her hands around the back of his neck and pulls him in toward her.

She tastes like the wine they shared, aged bitter like for however long she’s been waiting to exchange those three words.

Strong, she pushes him back into the couch behind them. He falls into the cushions and she falls onto him, her hair forming a wavy curtain around his face. She leans in to press a kiss onto his forehead, down his nose, over his cheeks, and finally on his mouth. Her hands tug at his collar restlessly, as if she’s forgotten that she’s sitting on his stomach, her body weight clamping down his shirt to his body. Unable to get his clothing off him, she moans tiredly and gives up, pulling off her shirt and bra instead, and he watches the waves of her black hair bounce back over her shoulders and breasts.

Instinctively, he reaches for her hips with his hands, following the curves up her torso and over her back. He pulls her back down for a kiss, which she gladly offers. He wants so bad to touch skin to skin — his body is hot and his patience is shallow —  but there’s also a lucid moment where he reminds himself that everything about what they were already doing and everything about what they are about to do is wrong.

“Wait, wait, wait…” he breathes between kisses, holding her face back with his hands. “Are you sure?”

Her eyes don’t look concerned.

“Yes,” she replies out loud anyway, and comes back to the moment without fail. She pushes forward to crash his lips against hers, her fingers pulling at the buckle of his belt. His hands smooth over her breasts, thumbs running over the nipples, before reaching for the band of her pants and tugging the clothing down past her knees.

He doesn’t think to reflect on which or what of him she’s thinking of.

Does it matter either way? He can’t even figure out if this desire coming from deep within his core is from the ghost of his body’s former self or from the loss of integrity of his current self.

The rest of their clothes fall to the floor or are pushed away into the cushions of the couch. He lets her climb over his hips, guides her rhythm with his hands over her hips. He lets her find herself and he lets himself go.

 _It’s just this damn body_ , he tells himself.

.

.

Some number of days after his sister’s death, he lies in Ortega’s bed — after all, there’s no place else for him to stay without Poe around any longer and there’s no one else that had offered him space.

And at some late hour that day — when he’s feeling alone and distant and unworthy of the world — she comes home, kicking the door behind her and coming down the stairs, heavy on the heel, until she suddenly seems to remember that he’s still there, and she completely quiets.

He feels her look at him a moment, then her footsteps resume.

He keeps his face up to the ceiling, all the meantime listening to her. He hears her pull off her boots by the steps leading to her door, hears her drop her purse onto the kitchen counter, hears her come toward him. Her space is all one room and no doors, separated just by corners and fengshui design; all it takes for her is a straight uninterrupted walk to the corner of her mattress to stand before him.

Her body blocks the low lamp light, casting long shadows on the wall on the other opposite side. It’s now that he knows he can no longer pretend he doesn’t notice her, so he shifts his gaze to her silhouette, where she is standing with her hands on her hips. He can’t see the crook of her frown or the narrowing of her eyebrows against the yellow light behind her, but he can tell that’s what she’s wearing on her face.

“You’re still here,” she simply observes.

He doesn’t reply, just rolls over onto his side, showing his back to her.

She quietly steps over to the other side of her bed and crouches down to meet him face to face. Now the light from behind him shines on her face and he can see her dark eyes.

Just by the look of the concern on her face, he can tell it’s been probably about three days since he’s retreated and lost touch with the world.

And that was just too damn bad because he isn’t used to grieving, but he guesses that whatever sleeve-switching sickness and anger leftover from previous lifetimes has finally washed over.

Now he is just empty.

After hearing nothing from him for another full five seconds, she takes a deep breath in and rises, sitting herself on the edge of the bed. He feels her body make a small depression in the mattress, and his weight follows the dip, leaning his body into the small of her back.

“You’re not okay,” she says.

“No,” he agrees.

She takes another breath in, lifting her left arm up and reaching her hand up to brush away some of the copper bangs off his forehead and behind his ears. She rests the palm over her hand just behind his ear.

After a full minute, he realizes he’s been holding his breath. He’s not sure what he’s waiting for, but when he shifts his gaze downward and sees how suddenly her face is, he closes his eyes and waits for the feel of her cool lips on his temple, the smell of the ends of her shampooed hair tickling her nose.

It happens, and then she withdraws. He feels the wind of her leaving, and his eyes snap open. He feels her weight lift from the mattress, and he sits up on bed. She notices his movement and turns to check back on him, and then seeing his outstretched arms, she climbs into his limbs and the two of them crash back into her bed, her lips against his.

He feels his hands move the back of her neck, following her spine until his hands circle her waist. Something inside him lurches and he flips her onto his back, his body falling between her legs. His hands slip under the hem of her shirt. Once his fingertips feel the warmth of her skin, his mind suddenly clicks.

 _It’s just this damn body,_ he reminds himself.

This time, he pulls away.

He retreats to the corner of the bed, sitting up with his hands folded together, elbows propped onto his knees and head hanging low, a sigh escaping his lips.

She pulls herself back up, her shirt falling back over her skin. Her hair, already tousled, drops back over her shoulders.

“What’s wrong?”

She’s hurt. He can hear it in the croak of her question.

He gives himself a moment, watching her intently before he answers. He slowly shakes his head.

“I… I’m not in the right mind,” he says. “Or body.”

She nods, her arms slowly wrapping around herself, as if hugging herself. She looks away, and he takes it as a sign that she understands.

“I can’t tell how I feel,” he continues. “I can’t tell if — “

“Just go,” she interrupts sharply, throwing her legs off her bed and standing. She straightens herself out. “You don’t need to explain. All this time, and you don’t know.”

“I’m sorry,” he replies.

Then he goes.

.

.

He decides that if he can’t be in the right mind, he can at least be in the right body.

He pulls some strings using the influence he acquired from Bancroft’s money and the honor of overturning his sister’s crimes. He stumbles upon a lead that promises him his body back.

It takes another month wandering in this _gaijin_ body but eventually when he wakes up again, he is finally back in his own skin.

When he rises to his feet, he has never felt more grateful to be back at his height — but he thinks of what standing next to her would be like now. When he breathes in, the air rushes into his lungs as he always remembered it did — but he thinks of words he wants to whisper in her ear. When he looks down at his hands, he is enthralled by his dexterity not lost by in the process of printing — but he thinks of how much he craves touch.

And he decides now that he’s in the right mind.

.

.

It’s as if she’s been awaiting his return.

As soon as he knocks, he hears her unlocking the dead bolts to her door, and then suddenly she’s standing there in front of him.

She looks him up and down, before eventually meeting his eyes.

“And now?” she asks. “How do you feel?”

This time, he can tell.

“The same.”

**Author's Note:**

> in case no one got the transplant rejection-themed title, clearly, i’m seeping medical nerdfullness out at the most inopportune times. like when writing fic.
> 
> anyway, this was a mess of a fic. follow along on tumblr @tak-kovacs instead. fun times, i promise.


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